


Fly Again

by taeminki



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 12:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11147991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taeminki/pseuds/taeminki
Summary: Qian Kun will never forget the last phone call he had with his boyfriend.





	Fly Again

_Qian Kun will never forget the last phone call he had with his boyfriend_.

 

Kun couldn't get it right-- the script; it just wasn't right. It was scrappy; something about it wasn't right. No; no, Jun wasn't like that. His character, Jun; he just wasn't like that. He was crazy, but he wasn't _crazy_. He wouldn't set a fire-- what was he thinking? What was Jun thinking? Kun couldn't get it right; something about Jun was so _difficult_ ; he was so frustrating--

Kun was ready to scream by the time his phone rang-- _again_. It had rung four times in the past ten minutes-- ring, ring, ring; begging him to pick up. Kun finally did-- grabbed his phone, slid his finger across the bottom of the screen-- "What?!"-- and didn't bother to think about who was on the other line. His boyfriend's stuttered voice came through the receiver, "I-I'm sorry--" and he sounded like he was crying. Kun knew he wasn't crying because Kun had snapped; his voice was far too stuffy for it to have just clogged up. He was sure, though, that his attitude gave no assist to whatever it was that Sicheng was crying about.

"I'm sorry. Baby, I'm sorry-- I'm just busy. What do you need? What's the matter?" Kun tried to sound as sweet as possible for Sicheng, hoping the sugar would make up for the salt he'd just poured on Sicheng's wounds. Sicheng didn't answer for a second, and simply sniffled. Kun was already growing impatient-- a shame, because he was never patient with his boyfriend; he was never supposed to be impatient with someone he adored so much. Kun supposed it was the stress-- his boss hounding on him, telling him to _have the script ready by Thursday_ \-- and it was Wednesday night and Kun just couldn't figure out the end. Kun supposed he was lucky, however, that it wasn't his boss on the phone-- back to hound him again. He was lucky it was just his boyfriend-- his boyfriend, with a problem that he wouldn't say anything of.

"Sicheng, please tell me what's going on. Come on, I'm really busy, baby." Kun pushed. Sicheng sniffled again, and, finally, he uttered some words of his issues, "I-I can't do it anymore, Kun."

"You can't-- what? Baby, I told you I'd be back really, really soon. Look, as soon as I get this script turned in, I can come back home. Okay? I get a week off, and I can bring you with me this time. I promise. Soon, okay? Okay?" Kun asked. Sicheng was silent for another moment-- a moment too long, and Kun _really_  had to go-- "Baby, I promise. I _promise_. I have to go, but I'll call you tomorrow, okay? I promise, I promise."

Kun hung up without saying anything further or letting Sicheng say anything further. He pulled his script to him and stared at it for a long, long time-- went over the beginning, fixed his mistakes. _Come on, come on_ , he thought; and then it came to him. It came, and he knew how the story should end. It was unexpected-- it was out of nowhere-- it was strange and sad and out of character.

Kun wrote the last word and lay back in his chair for twenty minutes, beat and tired and with a raging headache. When his phone rang again, he wanted to scream. He told his boss he would have the damn thing done; he told Sicheng he would call him tomorrow, and he would be home soon-- which one of them was calling _now?_  Again, Kun picked up his phone, and he began to talk before he knew who it was-- "I _told you_ \--" and he paused, because he didn't know who he was talking to. So he waited for a confused voice to flood through the phone, and one did, but not one that Kun recognized, "Uh-- I'm-- I'm sorry, is this Qian Kun?"

"Huh? Yes, it is. Who is this?" Kun asked. How odd, Kun thought, that he should get a call from someone he didn't know at this hour. This hour-- 03:34, some hours-- perhaps four-- after he'd talking to Sicheng; some more hours-- perhaps seven-- after he'd talked to his boss. What could be the importance of this call, he wondered? What subject could be brought up over the phone at half past three in the morning?

Many words flowed through Kun's ear in the next minutes-- a brand new name followed by a horrible story. Kun stared at his script as he listened to the story-- the story of Dong Sicheng. He listened to himself ask question he wasn't even sure were proper to ask; he listened to all the answers. _History of depression_ , he heard; and he already knew that. Of course he did-- what kind of boyfriend wouldn't know their significant other had suffered from depression? But, then, what kind of boyfriend was Kun, to not know that his boyfriend still suffered? _Had_  suffered-- what kind of boyfriend was Kun to rush through a conversation and hang up on his significant other on the night he had an urge to kill himself?

What kind of boyfriend was Kun?

Kun didn't get to answer himself until he was standing at Sicheng's grave-- no headstone, because his death had been so sudden. He had been reduced to a boxed layer of dirt, with some grass around him, and other dead people with headstones. Kun finally broke out of the numb state he'd been in when he ordered plane tickets that night, when he had spent no time sleeping and no time editing his script, when he had called his boss and told him he had a family emergency; his office was open; he could review the script and send it to himself. Kun had no time to do it himself. He took his numb legs to the airport after he'd packed his bags-- absent-minded and probably forgetting half of his things. He sat his numb body in a plane; he wrapped his numb arms around Sicheng's family. He bought a new black suit; he sat at Sicheng's funeral. Only now, when he was alone, did the numbness shatter. And, hell, did it hurt. It brought him to his knees; it ripped his throat with new, painful sobs. He dug his fingers into the dirt; he cried, and he created mud. He begged for Sicheng; he cursed at himself. He wished his baby back to life; he wished he had just _talked to him_. He was too stressed because of his script-- what a joke! He'd give up everything for Sicheng; why had Kun taken his promises for granted? Why had Kun failed to detect the sadness in Sicheng's voice? Why had Kun messed up _so badly?_

Kun would never be able to fully recall the week he spent with Sicheng's family as the beginning of his movie was being made without him. He remembered getting phone calls and agreeing to whatever. He remembered holding Sicheng's mother. He remembered wanting to tell them about the phone conversation he had had with Sicheng-- how it was his fault, how he had failed them all. But then Sicheng's mother began to sob into Kun's shoulder, whispered rivers of "He loved you so much, Kun-- oh, how badly he wanted to marry you-- how sweet you were to him-- how much you meant to him--" and Kun couldn't bring himself to taint his own name in their mouths. They spoke so highly of him; they clung to him like a last hope, like a last sliver of Sicheng left on earth because his love lived on in Kun's chest. Kun couldn't take that from them. Or perhaps he couldn't bare to take it from himself.

The only thing Kun would remember clearly was the heat: the time of the year. Summer. It was summer, the time that was supposed to be the happiest. For Kun, summer meant freedom. Summer was the season Kun and Sicheng ran away-- one summer, when they gathered enough money and courage to just _run away_. They ran to another part of China; they discovered an entirely new world in a place they had grown up. They received worried phone calls and _I miss you_  texts from family and friends; but they had run away, and they were happy. Kun started to write a script that summer-- his first script. He wrote about Sicheng; he wrote about a brand new love. He looked at other couples and other individuals and incorporated what he knew of their stories into his-- a business man who was trying to calm him sleeping daughter. He wrote Sicheng as that business man-- only he was sitting on the couch, no suit, no briefcase. He was dressed in pajamas and it was early in the morning, and he was soothing his crying baby sister, who missed him and wanted him to come back home. Sicheng laughed at that part, because he didn't have a baby sister. But he nodded at the words he said, and told Kun they were accurate-- that did sound like something he would say.

If only he could say it now-- now, to his mother, or his father. If only he could tell them he would be home soon; he was just getting away for a while. If only that was possible. If only he could come home soon--

\--if only _Kun_  had come home sooner.

Kun tried not to blame himself too much, or let Sicheng's parents blame themselves too much. He wanted to believe that, even if he had come home soon, or even if he had talked to Sicheng for a long time, or let him talk more, Sicheng would have done it anyway. Maybe not that night, maybe not for another week, or month, or year, or however long he got to keep Kun this time; but, eventually, he would have done it. But then there was that chance-- that possibility-- that hope. Kun could have stayed on the phone with him, sung him to sleep. He could have returned to him the next day-- perhaps before he even awoke. They could have had a week together, and then taken an exciting flight back to Kun's studio. They could have spent forever together on that movie set. Kun could have realized Sicheng's depression; or Sicheng could have realized he wanted to feel as happy as he could, with Kun. He could have gotten help. He could have gotten better. If only Kun had stayed on the phone....

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I wrote this, but I'm most likely going to continue it.


End file.
